Egypt faces more violence as Brotherhood calls for 'day of rage'

Reporting from Cairo, Louisa Loveluck says country is braced for renewed
confrontation after the Muslim Brotherhood called for a nationwide march of
millions to show anger at a ferocious security crackdown on Islamists in
which hundreds were killed.

10:45AM BST 16 Aug 2013

Clean-up operations were under way on Friday morning around the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque compound in Cairo, where supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi had been camped out for six weeks to demand his reinstatement.

At least 638 people were confirmed killed and almost four-thousand wounded in violence sparked when riot police backed by armoured vehicles, snipers and bulldozers smashed the Morsi supporters' two Cairo sit-ins.

The Muslim Brotherhood, trying to regroup after the assault on their encampments and the arrest of many of their leaders, called for a mass rally on Friday in a challenge to the government's declaration of a month-long state of emergency and a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

Reporting for the Telegraph in Cairo, Louisa Loveluck says supporters plan to gather at Ramses square, where there has "previously been quite intense clashes between Morsi supporters and the police".

"[Muslim Brotherhood supporters] rather than being cowered, they were entirely defiant and they were saying they were going to keep marching and keep escalating until they got their president back."

Friday prayers have proved a fertile time for protests during more than two years of unrest across the Arab world.

In calling for a "Friday of rage," the Brotherhood used the same name as that given to the most violent day of the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. That day, Jan 28, 2011, marked the protesters' victory over the police, who were forced to retreat while the army was asked to step in.